San Francisco Police Department: Duties, Salary and Benefits - <AUTHOR> http://www.sf-police.org/index.aspx?page=1655 <comment><USER2> It's not just the salary that is high - the pension benefit (as is typical for California) is astonishing: Up to 90% of salary at the very early retirement age of 58. These kind of pensions schemes are the reason many states (especially California) are experiencing budgetary crises.

<comment><USER3> (1) The California budget crisis was as much political gridlock as anything else and appears to be currently resolved. Certain people used it as a an opportunity to attack public services and public sector unions.

(2) These particular salaries (SF police department) are financed out of local revenues and have nothing to do with the state budget anyway.

(3) The cost of living in SF is sky high as we all know, good for them for paying appropriately if they want to get the best people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For comparison, the NYPD starting salary is $44,744.

[http://www.nypdrecruit.com/benefits- salary/overview](http://www.nypdrecruit.com/benefits-salary/overview)

<comment><USER5> Could anyone speak on the difference between the day-to-day dealings with serious and dangerous crimes/criminals in each city? In terms of cost of living the cities are very comparable so I'm astonished to see the difference in base salary. I'm sure the San Francisco PD doesn't take off Fridays like most municipal offices in CA.

[http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of- living/city_result.jsp?country...](http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of- living/city_result.jsp?country=United+States&city=New+York%2C+NY)

[http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of- living/city_result.jsp?country...](http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of- living/city_result.jsp?country=United+States&city=San+Francisco%2C+CA)

Edit: Upon further thinking there are ~2,000 SFPD and ~35,000 NYPD. NYPD Budget: ~3.6 Million. SFPD Budget: I cannot find.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's worth paying for good, non-corrupt police officers. Better to pay them well and hold them to high standards than to accept lower standards for lower pay.

<comment><USER7> I have to agree: police bribery is so common across poorer countries and is so harmful to the rule of law. Better to err on the side of overpaying.

<comment><USER8> Western countries where police are paid average wages don't seem to have much problem with corruption. Overpaying seems unnecessary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> a police officer with 5 years experience typically makes over 200k total comp between salary, overtime and retirement benefits. Some make as high as $600k+ a year. Feel free to look up the public records if you don't believe me.

It's a much better paying job on average than being a software engineer

Edit: and I'm not saying whether it should or shouldn't be a better paying job than a SE, just noting the facts. Many are unaware. Sometimes I see guilt threads from engineers who make 150k. They are really behind the times in this area.

<comment><USER10> Plus most police officers retire after 20 years, so technically the police office could retire at the age of 45.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> These men and women are signing up to protect us, at great personal physical (not to mention psychological) risk. They should absolutely earn a living wage that enables them to live in the community in which they serve.

<comment><USER12> So do members of the military and they get paid half as much.

<comment><USER13> Well, then they should get a pay raise. It's about time anyways. You can easily make $150k a year as a private contractor.

<comment><USER14> Numbers like that are likely to represent gross pay. Military personnel deployed to combat zones are meanwhile tax-exempt, and receive comprehensive benefits.

The arithmetic for comparing deployed military and private contractors is probably similar to the comparison between full-time employees and freelancers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Looks to be a supply issue for new police officers. I hope the government will create a new foreign worker visa to allow talented foreign peace keepers and law men fast tracked entry in to the US to ensure the safety and prosperity of our citizens and future generations.

<comment><USER16> If all the other Bay Area police departments offer similar compensation and benefits, as seems to be the case, SF will have a hard time finding new recruits at lower pay. So it's impossible to tell if it is a demand or supply issue. The first thing you would want to look at is the number of applicants.

This is very similar to the issue with CEO compensation - high pay at competitors just encourages even higher pay with little to contain it. I wonder if they use the same consultants to justify ever increasing pay and benefits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> In contrast Detroit Police start at $30,137. Something tells me the San Francisco police don't have to transport dead bodies in their cars or any of the other horror stories I've heard from the DPD.

<comment><USER18> At the same time, $30k buys you more in MI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> 112k seems pretty high for entry level work, considering they most likely don't have a college education, but maybe it makes it possible for them to live here

<comment><USER20> You don't need any form of education (besides high school) to become a police officer? If true, that's pretty surprising to me.

<comment><USER21> It's true in most jurisdictions, as far as I know. Having a college degree of some sort can help get you on the fast track to promotions and/or investigative positions. At the sheriff's office where I worked in the past, you didn't get beyond Captain without some college (with certain exceptions for under-the-table nepotism of course).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Twenty year San Francisco resident here. $110,000/year is decent pay, but its not enough to afford to pay a mortgage for a small home in the city. It's a good idea to have your first responders living in the city they serve, you know, in case of an emergency (i.e. earthquake).

I'm glad to hear they pay well, and if that's the base pay, hopefully the more senior officers make enough that they can buy a middle class home and settle down in the city they serve.

Also, good pay = less corruption. SF is the only place I've lived where I trusted the cops.

</comment><comment><USER23> That seems reasonable. Being a police officer is a tough job, and San Francisco is a very high cost-of-living area.

</comment><comment><USER24> This should be heavily publicized. Hopefully, by letting people know that they can earn a good living by being a police officer, the quality of candidates will continue to increase. Entering the police force still carries a stigma, IMO, particularly around not being highly intelligent or thinking for oneself. Those are likely the people we want as our police officers; I'm more than happy to have my taxes support such pay levels if we do attract those people to the force.

<comment><USER25> It's the culture, not the pay. Want to get horrified? Go read cop boards like officer.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I get paid to be a software engineer and volunteer as a police reservist in my spare time. Maybe I am doing this the wrong way around :/

</comment><comment><USER27> I think it's fair considering how much it costs to live in SF these days. They also risk their lives everyday serving and protecting. You shouldn't be complaining if a police officer makes more than you. Their potential of making money is actually peanuts compared to civilians. Do you know any police officer billionaires?

<comment><USER28> I do know a police officer multi-millionaire.

And another that is a co-founder of a company he is doing on the side and seems to be finding some success. There are very few intellectual property clauses in their contract and it is a job that they can leave at the station door when they go home in terms of creative energy.

Those two are admittedly outliers but when I was running events I had to (well, it was strongly suggested by the police themselves) hire off-duty police officers for $80/hour for security. Not to mention overtime which is fairly common.

In short, yes they risk their lives, but these folks have more opportunity to pad their bottom line than you seem to imagine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The base compensation is reasonable given the high cost of living in SF and the personal risk associated with the job. The pension is tougher to justify. Up to 90% of your salary at age 58 until EOL is likely unsustainable for the city. Cue epic battle between those who support public pensions and those who don't.

</comment><comment><USER30> I think the only way we could to tell if this is too much or too little is if we had a free market for protection services. Since we don't, we can only speculate. Maybe, it's actually not enough. I can't object anyone receiving a high salary, but if this salary is paid out of my own pocket with no consent of mine and with the police force regularly abusing their powers, then yes, I believe this is not just too much - this is outrageous.

</comment><comment><USER31> Only 10 days of paid vacation? That's really a bit low IMO.

<comment><USER9> really 22 days---sick days are separate. Plus more holidays than typical in private work

<comment><USER8> Sick days are not vacation.

<comment><USER32> Tell that to companies that take your sick leave out of your vacation time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Seems reasonable to me. Do you want police walking around that _aren 't_ well- paid?

</comment><comment><USER9> higher than I made my first year out with a masters a few years ago</comment>


This sound system is so powerful no human could survive hearing it - <AUTHOR> http://io9.com/this-sound-system-is-so-powerful-no-human-could-survive-1512501017 <comment><USER2> This is a direct copy of [http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2014/01/Large_Europe...](http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2014/01/Large_European_Acoustic_Facility)

</comment><comment><USER3> Start the countdown to Disaster Area.</comment>


Ask HN: How do I develop terse yet elegant written communication skill - <AUTHOR> I am amazed at some of the design docs by my co-workers here at Google. The docs have phenomenal word economy AND read beautifully. It is literally a joy to read such docs as one sentence leads me to a question which is answered soon in the next paragraphs. The sentences use the minimum yet precise words to deliver phenomenal information density. What are ways people develop this skill?<p>FYI English is my second language but I did grow up learning both. I'd say my formal English is on par (if not better) than the native speakers. <comment><USER2> What you are describing matches perfectly the book "Writing with Style" by John Trimble

He says:

> Books on writing tend to be windy, boring, and impractical. I intend this > one to be different—short, fun, and genuinely useful.

See a review: [https://nargaque.com/2010/07/07/writing-with-style-john-r- tr...](https://nargaque.com/2010/07/07/writing-with-style-john-r-trimble/)

If you could read only one book on this topic, this is it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would recommend the book The Pyramid Principle by Barbara Minto

It covers how to write logically so that a document flows as you have described it.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've found that the best way to improve my own writing is by practicing writing, editing, and reviewing. Two books that have helped me improve are Stephen King's _On Writing_ and William Zinsser's _On Writing Well_.

Working at Google, I like that I get the chance to practice through design docs, although that may be my rose-tinted 6-month-tenure glasses speaking. I also try to write outside of work, though the deliberate practice does take some effort for me.

Have you taken the technical writing class at Google? That may be another good resource, although there's a deep waitlist for the ones I see now.

<comment><USER5> I second Zinsser, great book.

Mainly: write, then edit, re-edit etc. Keep going until nothing can be improved. In _Clean Code_ it says, no-one can _write_ clean code - you write dirty code then clean it. Every first draft of a novel sucks. Writers do 50 drafts and it starts looking OK. _Every_ word carefully weighed dozens of times. No-one can write perfect prose in the first draft. _Write a terrible first draft_ , of a chapter or part, then you have raw material to edit. Don't judge the first draft for quality - it's supposed to be bad.

Also, I've found that you often learn as much about the subject while doing that as you knew before! It's a great way to learn. Questions arise as you're doing it - make a temporary list of them at the end, most will answer themselves or can be answered in minutes or hours. If any are left, leave as Exercises for the reader :-)

p.s. Some people say it's way better doing it on paper. When "cut and paste" was with scissors and glue, you could cut everything up and move the parts around before starting to paste, as many great writers have done - on a computer screen you can only move one section at a time. _Cut, paste, cut paste._

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Read well written books. George Orwell, for example, was quite particular about language. Another factor to consider is that brevity takes time. You have keep editing your work to minimise redundancy. After some practice, you will need fewer iterations and eventually some of it will be natural.

Perhaps you will find encouragement here: [https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter- letter/](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Look into technical writing resources. One of the best resources I've seen is from proposal writing classes which you should find common with large consultancy organizations. Also, take a look at military writing guides [1]. There's some quick and simple guidance on writing for brevity and clarity in such guides.

[1] [http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/army/p600_67.pdf](http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/army/p600_67.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER8> I'll echo a recommendation which I found productive:

Copy a favorite blog post or a few paragraphs from a book chapter by typing them yourself.

It is a very interesting exercise, makes your brain take in the words and digest them in a different way.

In your case retype one of your coworker's docs.

Some other sources I'd recommend for this: Seth Godin's blog, Dan Lyon's Lab Rats book. Efficient, energetic and energizing writing with a high signal to noise ratio.

</comment><comment><USER9> You have to think deeply about the topic - certainty about what you are trying to express prevents equivocation.

The structure for the document comes from knowledge of the intended audience and their purpose combined with knowledge of the topic.

Economy of expression is gained from careful and continuous 'refactoring'; restructuring what you say, optimising for simplicity and leverage of the language.

</comment><comment><USER10> Write early, put it away, come back later, reread it, edit.. rinse and repeat.

Read what you wrote aloud to yourself (go somewhere where people won't stare at you while you're doing this)

Listen and try to remember more samples of what you think good writing is, subconsciously your writing will start getting better gradually as you write more.

</comment><comment><USER11> Your co-workers are keeping a secret. They probably took a lot of time and numerous attempts to prepare a final document with "phenomenal word economy".

Mark Twain (or was it Blaise Pascal?) put it best - "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead."

</comment><comment><USER12> I suggest reading more. I've always found that my writing is at it's best when I'm reading more.

</comment><comment><USER13> Could you give a snippet of your coworker works ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry all that stuff (design docs, prds etc) is confidential. I'll try to find blogs which I can post.</comment></comment>


KreMLin: A tool for extracting low-level F* programs to readable C code - <AUTHOR> https://fstarlang.github.io/lowstar/html/ <comment><USER2> Url changed from [https://github.com/FStarLang/kremlin](https://github.com/FStarLang/kremlin), which points to this.

A tiny thread from 2016: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12753788](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12753788)</comment>


Climate Change Is Making Trees Grow Faster - <AUTHOR> https://interestingengineering.com/climate-change-is-making-trees-grow-faster <comment><USER2> So maybe increased climate change is how we can replant the world's lost trees

<comment><USER3> Short answer - NO.

I read about this story a few days ago upon another site, it pertains to tree's growing in a permafrost area, if you factor that the permafrost will release lots of methane, then this area of increased growth is not as rosy as it seems.

Sure, such stories can be spun in any direction.

Climate change debate can be settled with - do you want clean air and water? Which everybody I've met - says yes - whatever their statistical stance on climate is.

<comment><USER4> Yeah things are not as simple as it seems. I read a study on irrigation of the Sahara to grow forests, but the change in albedo (reflectivity) from desert sand to dark forest would counteract the benefit of the carbon sequestration and lead to a net temperature increase. I imagine the same holds true for northern areas because snow and ice are extremely reflective. The methane release is just icing on the metaphorical shit cake.</comment></comment></comment>


How MEMS Is Involved in a New Coronavirus Testing Method - <AUTHOR> https://www.designworldonline.com/how-is-mems-involved-in-coronavirus-testing/ <comment><AUTHOR> Some details about Kurt Petersen [0] who is a pioneer in MEMS technology and also one of the founders of the company (Cepheid) behind this new coronavirus testing method.

[0] [https://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/profiles/kurt- petersen-2...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/profiles/kurt- petersen-2019-ieee-medal-of-honor-recipient-is-mr-mems)</comment>


CTO becomes CEO of UK's biggest grocer - <AUTHOR> http://thebln.com/2010/06/cto-becomes-ceo-of-big-uk-grocer/

<comment><USER2> He's also International Director, and if Tesco plans on conquering USA next, it may be a logical fit from that angle.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is that THE P Clark? Do you get notified if you get a response to a comment here?

<comment><USER2> do you mean am i phil clarke? no...

tis @plc. i spend too much time on HN - and have a few friends (eg: you, jedc, adw, rahulvohra, samstokes, swombat, etc) bookmarked and like to occasionally check to see if you've submitted anything cool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The start of the rise of the geeks.</comment>


Using Raspberry Pi to measure new lobbyists in DC - <AUTHOR> http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/04/11/measuring-lobbyists-with-raspberry-pi/

<comment><USER2> I wish i could read it, sounds interesting but the font color just hurts my eyes.</comment>


"WarGames" Magazine Identified - <AUTHOR> http://mw.rat.bz/wgmag/

<comment><USER2> Probably the coolest part of that article was the realization that I could read some arbitrary magazine from 1982 on my browser within seconds. Archive.org really is an amazing organization, and I was also happy to find out that they're matching donations 3:1 due to anonymous generosity after their recent fire-y setback [1]. Do consider donating!

[1] [http://archive.org/donate/](http://archive.org/donate/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Well this makes me feel old. The answer was clear enough from that one freeze- frame[1]. When I was a kid, the local public library had a stack of Creative Computing magazines. I remember that cover.

[1] [http://mw.rat.bz/wgmag/09_Front_Cover.png](http://mw.rat.bz/wgmag/09_Front_Cover.png)

<comment><AUTHOR> If it is that easy, why is it that this information did not exist on the net until now? I am someone who had the interest and took time to put this together in a nice presentation.

<comment><USER4> You did an impressive job. Thank you. The reason this information did not exist in written form is that it was fairly obvious to those who knew Creative Computing and could readily identify the magazine, to the point of nobody thinking about writing it down. I knew Creative Computing (it was one of my favorite computer magazines, along with BYTE and Nibble) and if someone asked me, I would readily identify it.

Now, I believe there is a lesson here. Those who were into computing at that time know a lot of stuff that never got written down. Maybe we should talk more with younger computer geeks who never heard a teletype (I love the sound they make) or have no idea we elders like to stay within 80 columns because of IBM punchcards.

You may have questions we can answer. Let's get them asked.

<comment><USER5> If you're ever in Seattle, stop by the Living Computer Museum sometime. You can interact with mainframes, Teletypes, punch cards, etc. Lots of fun.

Here are some photos I took last time we went:

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/mratzloff/sets/7215763439619459...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/mratzloff/sets/72157634396194597/detail/)

I included descriptions on most of these, if you're curious about anything in particular.

<comment><USER6> It's also fun to stop by the Museum of Communications [0], about 3 miles down the road, to see old working telephone exchanges and such. There's a lot of commonality between the two. (They are only open on Tuesdays, first Sundays of the month, or by appointment.)

The MoC runs its own BBS off of an AT&T 3B2 model 500 [1], which can be accessed via telnet.

[0] [http://museumofcommunications.org/](http://museumofcommunications.org/) or [http://www.scn.org/telmuseum/](http://www.scn.org/telmuseum/)

[1] [http://museumofcommunications.org/?page_id=164](http://museumofcommunications.org/?page_id=164)

[2] full disclosure: my dad was involved in forming the Telecommunications History Group, which is the parent organization for the MoC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This post got me thinking about my old hobbies as a high schooler in the late 80s and I remembered war dialing. It was trilling to come home after school and see what my dailer had discovered while I was away. With a few weeks of dialing, I covered all of prefixes in my local exchange. Found a back door into my high school's library (but never could guess or shoulder-surf the password, sadly) and found a terminal server at the local university where I could telnet out without any authentication.

I was just now googling around for war dialers and came across this:

[http://sourceforge.net/projects/iwar/](http://sourceforge.net/projects/iwar/)

Looks pretty awesome and supports SIP/IAX2. I may have to give it a shot. Surely there are still some interesting back doors out there.

<comment><USER8> Yes! The war dialling in this movie was great, as was the hacking (or 'cracking' if you're gonna be precious about it). Also there's a scene where David needs to make a call without change and hacks a payphone using a technique that worked IRL.

Arguably one of the only two truish-to-life hacker movies ever made (the other of course being Sneakers, [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105435](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105435)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This film got me into computer programming. As a young kid, I was mesmerised by it. Matthew Brodrick saved the world, got the girl and got to play with the coolest tech at the time. What more could any boy want? I still think I owe Matthew a pint of good Ale or a Raspberry Pie for single handedly launching my career.

<comment><USER10> My father only agreed to have kids if we lived near what's now known as the research triangle. Same line of thinking as prof. Falken: go out early. I was born in '78, so guess I don't owe my life to a movie, but it's an interesting tie in.

<comment><USER9> To be honest, I'd probably end up where I am with or without that film but the early memory of it is so strong with me that I keep making that connection (for that warm fuzzy feeling). I was born at '76 and that tech to me seemed so far out futuristic for many years. It was only in the 90s that before I got my first modem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> TL;DR: It's "Creative Computing Magazine (September 1982) Volume 08 Number 09"

PDF for those looking to read it: [https://ia601602.us.archive.org/6/items/creativecomputing-19...](https://ia601602.us.archive.org/6/items/creativecomputing-1982-09/Creative_Computing_v08_n09_1982_September.pdf)

<comment><USER12> I appreciate the TL;DR in this case, as I could have done without the rather odd egoistic intro. in the article. One would think the author had just solved P=NP.

"I have performed a real world hack...Through the use of my knowledge of computer magazines...my sharp eyes...I have overcome the limited amount of information available...and with complete certainty...I finally achieved my goal on 2013-02-24 at 5:30pm."

I mean, it is cool and of novel interest, for sure. The intro a little over- the-top, perhaps?

<comment><USER13> My take on that was that he was poking fun at himself.

At face value it sounds like inflated ego, but I think his tongue was firmly in his cheek.

<comment><USER5> Given his comment here[1] I don't think that's the case.

Clearly the author is very proud of himself after years of wondering about it, so it's understandable why he feels this is a big achievement. I'm sure all of us have these little things that we'd like to know, and the cool thing about the Internet is that every year it gets easier to discover the answers.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6944786](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6944786)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The 'Pinball Construction Set' program was advertised, I cant remember the page. I had that program on a Commadore 64 and it was phenomenal for what it did in <40k memory.

It even had a movable cursor using keyboard with drag and drop. It was written by a guy named Bill Bulge best I remember and have always wondered where this guy is today? given how advanced his software was way back then.

<comment><USER15> Another one I remember was Arcade Game Construction Kit that in hindsight blows me away with its power on the C64. A full dev-kit for platformer and top-view games including sprite editor/animator, level-editor, tile-editor, sound-editor, etc. All windowed.

I spent _days_ in a beanbag chair with a comfy Epyx joystick ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Epyx_500XJ.jpg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Epyx_500XJ.jpg) oh my god that form-factor needs to come back) making games.

<comment><USER16> Interesting, I know that stick as the Konix Speedking.

Not complaining, the more names I find for it, the better chance I have of finding one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I get such a strong sense of nostalgia from old computer magazines like that. I'm not sure why. Maybe because they tended to depict computer system setups which you would never actually see in the real world, just some future utopia. Compared to today's magazines where the computer work stations are much more familiar. Or maybe this is just what nostalgia is.

</comment><comment><USER18> This reminds me of the time I bought an old 1972 issue of Rolling Stone magazine on eBay to be able to cite the Spaceware article (also available online) [1] in my bachelor's thesis on Smalltalk as evindence that the culture at Xerox PARC was somewhat unorthodox in the seventies.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5548719](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5548719)

</comment><comment><USER19> I picked my first Silicon Valley apartment based on the fact that it was the location mentioned in War Games.. I also purchased my house in Sunnyvale... that movie had a bit too much influence on my life ;)

</comment><comment><USER20> The magic of the magazines from that era is that they were full of articles from people showing "look what I did with my computer!"

Dr. Dobbs from that era vs the current or even worse, last decade's, shows the difference.

Some of HN is now a feed of that kind of attitude and enthusiasm, which is why we all waste so much time here.

</comment><comment><USER21> Bravo.

I am surprised to see a pistol in the Apple ad in Figure 16.

<comment><USER22> It's not really an Apple ad, just an ad for a book about the Apple computer, published by Creative Computing.

</comment></comment><comment> ezequiel-garzon How does the Internet Archive get the appropriate rights to make these scans available?

<comment><USER23> The Sonny Bono copyright act has a specific exception for libraries and archives who make available digital reproductions of works which are no longer commercially available at a reasonable price. Details at: [http://www.copyright.gov/docs/nla.html](http://www.copyright.gov/docs/nla.html)

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer. I'm not affiliated with the Internet Archive. I am, however, a packrat with a scanner.

<comment><USER24> That exception is only during the last 20 years of the term of copyright. The copyright extension was for 20 years, so basically the exception kept the old rules for libraries on stuff that wasn't commercially exploitable.

It's possible that the magazines were published without a copyright notice; and the works were not registered. It wasn't until March 1st 1989 that published works were automatically granted copyright. It's also quite possible that the owners of the rights have granted distribution rights to the Internet Archive; that is common too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Related to the Jade Computer Products ad that is in the "real" magazine: Does anyone know why so many computer shops had clusters of stores in both Dallas and southern California? I remember dealing with Jade (which was in Addison, not Dallas, though I guess they had a Dallas post office address) and seeing their ad list just the one store here. SoftWarehouse/CompUSA did the same thing for awhile but in reverse; a bunch of stores in north Texas and one or two near Los Angeles. Fry's went the other way for a long time, like Jade. MicroCenter is the only computer outlet brand, off the top of my head, that didn't have that kind of store allocation in the late 1980s into the 1990s.

Just one of those oddities from when I grew up, I suppose.

<comment><USER26> If I had to guess: [http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/company/factsheet.shtml](http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/company/factsheet.shtml)

"The company's headquarters is located at 12500 TI Boulevard, Dallas, Texas 75243."

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Very cool. Just reading this article makes me want to go back and watch that movie again. Those were some pretty cool times to be into tech.

</comment><comment><USER28> One year later I got a TI99/4A, a modem and tried to emulate David. I was literally fascinated by the film, especially its first part.

<comment><USER29> I bet you were using the Terminal Emulator II cartridge, which with the Speech Synthesizer attached could read you the text coming across, just like David does in the movie.

<comment><USER30> The Speech Synthesizer was the coolest thing about the TI99/4A. Well, that and Tunnels of Doom.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> wondering if the cleaned up video on the bluray master makes all of this digging moot. based on the quality of the transfer (which can be seen in screenshots on bluray.com) id bet the shot of the magazine cover as he walks by would be clear enough to see exactly what title says. work smarter, not harder.

<comment><USER27> What fun would that be?

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly!

Also, I think that the magazine will still be out of focus since the camera was focused primarily on the father.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> That Elephant floppy disc ad brings me back to the days of poring over the latest issue of 80 Microcomputing.

</comment><comment><USER33> Wonderful. I was a child when I saw this movie the first time, and it's one of the things that piqued my interest in computers (besides having access to an Apple ][).

Too bad the sequel was even worse than Tron's. Don't watch it if you haven't yet.

<comment><USER34> I loved the Tron sequel. I can't quite imagine making a comparison like that though - both Tron and the sequel were extremely light on story and works primarily with the combination of concept and art. In both cases the story itself is enough for about a 5 minute short.

Tron: Legacy to me is some interesting ideas coupled with a movie length absolutely fantastic Daft Punk music video, while the original excited me for the computer graphics and the ideas it presented.

<comment><USER35> Seconded! I enjoyed the Tron sequel. I almost leaped out of my chair yelling "EMACS!!" in the office scene. Almost..

Here's an article about some of the visual effects in Tron (and emacs!): [http://jtnimoy.net/?q=178](http://jtnimoy.net/?q=178)

<comment><USER34> That article is almost more enjoyable than the movie.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Ahhh, those were the days when your main source of new source code to play with came from print publications.

</comment><comment><USER20> For those talking about sequels, FYI... There is a WarGames sequel on Netflix but I made it 3 minutes in before abandoning. Can anyone recommend it?

</comment><comment><USER37> Tangentially related: is the movie any good?

<comment><USER38> Yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Well, I'm glad _that_ mystery has been solved...

<comment><USER40> So do I

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Zegats! I think I used to own that issue.</comment>


Dacobots – eLearning for Kids - <AUTHOR> http://www.dacobots.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is the short text:)

The Dacobots portal provides a wide range of educational games that are meant to enrich the knowledge of its users and to enhance their cognitive abilities in an entertaining way.</comment>


Ask HN: What's the best Adsense alternative? - <AUTHOR>

Given the fact that Adsense does not allow you to sign up for an account using a subdomain of tumblr, I would imagine that even if you sign up with a different domain and then create and put Adsense on your Tumblr page, you will be penalised. So my question is, what's the best alternative of Adsense which allows adding ads on free-hosting websites? <comment><USER2> Chitika : <http://www.chitika.com/> \- low cpc, but allows you to put ads on subdomains. Clicksor : <http://www.clicksor.com/> for contextual ads.

Or just buy a domain. It costs around $10 { .com }.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can easily buy it, but is Google going to like the fact that I have a domain which is just a skeleton for a tumblr website?

<comment><USER2> "The Tumblr Terms of Service require that your blog be used primarily for blogging, but they do allow you to use AdSense or other ad systems as long as that's not the primary focus of your site." - [http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/22559/how-to-add-google- adsen...](http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/22559/how-to-add-google-adsense-to- your-tumblr-blog/)</comment></comment></comment>


Solving the Student Loan Crisis with IQ Tests - <AUTHOR> http://greyenlightenment.com/solving-the-student-loandebt-crisis-a-plan-that-can-work <comment><USER2> This will never work. Many have already tried to claim that IQ tests are 'racist' and this will just be another claim of discrimination.

The reason students are saddled with debt is because the government controls the loan system. Universities don't care that you can't pay the debt back (and get their money up-front) and continue to inflate the costs of administrative salaries and classes.

If you take out government-backed loans, the universities will be forced to lower the cost or nobody will be able to afford it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Isn't taking a student loan in itself an IQ test (testing for low IQ)?</comment>


Relicensing Dolphin: The long road to GPLv2+ - <AUTHOR> https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2015/05/25/relicensing-dolphin/

<comment> Ruud-v-A I think it is a mistake to license anything under a "or later version" license. If you do that, you licence your code under a license that you have never read, so how can you know that it serves your intentions? You are blindly licensing code under a licence that has yet to be written!

In the GPL case, the Free Software Foundation states that "The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the GNU General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns." (Section 14 of the GPLv3.) Now of course I don't expect the FSF to publish something radically different, but they _could_ do so. Even if you trust the FSF now, are you sure you trust the FSF twenty years from now?

<comment><USER2> Even in the worst case scenario, it remains available under the original license, and that's not going to change.

What is the worst case scenario, by the way? You could say it depends on who you are. One such scenario would be for developers who agree with the FSF's strong copyleft philosophy who are betrayed by a future hypothetical revision that removes all copyleft provisions to make it no stronger than, e.g., BSD. This affects only a subset of those choosing a license for their project. (I.e., if you don't care about copyleft, this purportedly horrific thing doesn't even affect you.) Funnily enough, the subset of those who would be affected are hardly ever the ones I see making the argument you are.

So what terrible things do you imagine the worst case scenario involving?

<comment><USER3> I would like to know that too, since all the worst case scenario I can think of is also defining aspects of permissive licensed projects.

For example, a community could fork a project and license it under a new'er version, and then the original founder could suddenly want to incorporate the new changes but at the same time not want to use the new license, and the new community refuses request for a license to the old version. I don't think it ever has happen with a gplv2+ project, and it require a quite hostile community to begin with, but as a worst case scenario that would likely be it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > In practice, GPLv3 only adds more restrictions to the license

Not at all. They say so themselves: GPLv3 adds compatibility with Apache v2, which GPLv2 lacks. This thus removes a restriction.

GPLv3 also clarifies some things from GPLv2, such as being explicit about being applicable not only to software, and giving a clearer meaning of what distributing software means. GPLv3 calls this "conveying".

<comment><USER5> That's not true at all. Read up on the different licenses. The reason v3 was created was to fight tivoization, where the code is realeased, but the hardware prevents loading updated copies. From the point of view of a company licensing their source, v3 is much more restrictive. It requires a lot more things than a more free license. Linux is famous for rejecting it because of that.

Yes, there's a benefit that you are compatible with other more strict licenses, but that's like saying moving from GPL to proprietary is less restrictive because then you are compatible with the rest of your proprietary code at your company. Being more compatible with less free licenses is not more free.

<comment><USER6> IMO, GPL2 has all the stuff against tivoization already there (preferred form for modification -- if I can't modify it for actual hardware, it's not enough).

<comment><USER7> then why can you not modify your tivo?

GPL2 hasn't had that problem present when it was written, and so tivo found a way to prevent practical modification, even tho they followed the letter of the license.

In my eyes, most, if not all open source software should use AGPL, and dual license a commercial license offer for those people who want to buy it for modification. You should contribute, or pay up, else the tragedy of the commons will occur.

<comment><USER8> AGPL is a market failure as I see it. I understand and sympathize with what that license is trying to do, but in practice, it just means that many companies won't touch that software (or will only touch it in a fashion where they don't modify that part of the system), meaning that there are far fewer adopters at all, and of those that adopt, fewer modify the software, meaning that it evolves more slowly than products with more used licenses.

<comment><USER9> Biggest problem seems to be kind-of unclear rules where it stops, especially when it comes to web applications (templates, linked assets, ...).

There are surprisingly few "trustworthy" comments on that out there, most stuff you find is a bunch of people going "I think XXX, but IANAL" on stack overflow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm wondering about those 0.5% who refused to relicense. What would be the rational behind refusing such a change. I can understand refusing for a project to be relicensed under a very different license but not between GPLv2 and GPLv2+...

<comment><USER11> If you're talking about Dolphin, read the article again. Nobody refused, but a few people couldn't be contacted - unlike Linux, Dolphin has never required real names from contributors, so this mostly consisted of a few people who contributed under an alias a few years ago before utterly vanishing from the Internet.

EDIT: disregard; didn't see the graph, and wasn't previously aware of the one person who refused. See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9600204](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9600204) for the correct answer.

<comment><USER12> I read it. And it's still confusing because of this graph (from the article):

[https://dolphin- emu.org/m/user/blog/relicensing/relicensepie...](https://dolphin- emu.org/m/user/blog/relicensing/relicensepie.svg)

Note: "0.5% Refused. Code Rewritten"

If you mouse over that graphic in the article it says 1 person refused. However, the article otherwise completely ignores that 1 person... (unless I missed it, both times ;) )

<comment><USER13> they Probably do not want to générale (further ?) Drama by publicly pointing fingers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> How come there was no mention of the upcoming OSVR partnership as one of the final straws to push forward with this change?</comment>


The blue light paradox: problem or panacea - <AUTHOR> http://www.pointsdevue.com/article/blue-light-paradox-problem-or-panacea <comment><AUTHOR> Interesting article about the possible damaging effects of UV and short wavelength light. This may help you choose the right sunglasses.</comment>


US eases Cuba, Iran, Sudan sanctions to allow freer web - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8556341.stm

<comment><USER2> Does this also apply to Sourceforge/Google code/Github?</comment>


The Spinner - <AUTHOR> https://www.thespinner.net/ <comment><USER2> I found this website really weird, with no "About us", so I searched some more.

"Elliot Shefler" (some publications put his name in quotes) is a co-founder, but he does not want to appear in photos and online profiles himself. He is Turkish-Jewish and spent most of his life working in ad-tech and online gambling. He claims his algorithms were developed by an agency with links to the Israeli military (this is repurposed military/PSYOP technology?). His whereabouts are unknown, circling between Germany, London, and LA.

In 2018 the price was 29$, now its 49$. Elliot claims $5.1 million revenue for 2018. Most customers are men, most customers want to initiate sex with a target. Nobody follows up to complain if it wasn't successful, since they are very much part of the conspiracy to manipulate. Elliot plans to share information with bigger advertisers: "A woman who wants a target to propose to her, would be in great proximity to a person that is in the market for an engagement ring".

This service is illegal in Europe, due to data protection and anti-tracking laws. The site has about 10 employees and one British company who works the contracts with bigger companies.

> "The value is in retention, not in the acquisition," he said.

> He related a story about one insurance company he was commissioned work on, > where he would target the insurance agents at the company to "brainwash and > manipulate" them and change the perception of the company itself with the > goal of retaining those agents.

> "We planned a similar campaign with a big pharmaceutical company that was > targeting doctors (not patients—doctors) with articles about the benefits of > a certain medicine."

> ... if he feels the same targeting tools he leverages for The Spinner could > be vulnerable to possible misuse, his response was matter-of-fact:

> "I would prefer using the word "effective" instead of 'vulnerable.' The > answer is: highly effective."

Very, very shady.

<comment><USER3> This is deplorable and hopefully some day grounds for prosecution by the people who were targeted and manipulated.

<comment><USER4> Wouldn't that give cause to sue every single advertiser who attempts to target and manipulate potential customers?

Aka all of them? I agree this is despicable, but I'm curious how you make this illegal and not all of advertising.

<comment><USER5> Just make it illegal to target ads based on the people viewing them. You can still target to things like contexts, venues, areas, etc. but it would rule this out and it would eliminate the justification to farm so much personal info.

<comment><USER6> Ha! Twitter can target based on email. As soon as I signup for some services, I immediately get ads. Same with LinkedIn.

Banning targeting via email address, birth date, name and other personal identifiers would go a really really long way.

I work for a tracking company and I know how much power marketing folks have nowadays. It's scary precise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For those who find this horrifying, the [typically unstated] assumption is that it works. I'm pretty skeptical of this. Think about it: what do you imagine the effect size is of seeing 10 articles like "4 Secrets to Losing Weight and Feeling GREAT While You Do It!" in your Facebook feed? I'd bet it's essentially 0. If seeing these kinds of articles is all it took to improve our body composition, then we'd all be absolutely shredded.

I'm not trying to argue that advertising doesn't work. Clearly it does. But there's a huge difference between being exposed to tens of thousands of Coca- Cola ads over a lifetime, and being exposed to 10 spam articles over the course of a month.

I'm also not trying to argue that this isn't creepy. Clearly it is. But the real 'target' of this scheme is the person buying the ads. I doubt this has any real effect on the person who sees them.

<comment><USER2> For some scientific research into this subject, see:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priming_(psychology)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priming_\(psychology\)) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repetition_priming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repetition_priming)

(do note that this research suffers a bit from p-hacking).

There is a good chance that you were already targeted before, since online manipulation is used by the big militaries. Think back about 2 years, reading about SJW, politics, neo-nazis, antifa, BLM, manspreading, immigrants, the deep state, etc. Good chance at least some of your perception about these subjects was molded by just a few individuals. For instance, remember that Russian girl throwing bleach on "manspreaders" in the metro? You may have had a strong reaction to that, and it would be the desired effect of Russian troll-factory.

Specifically, on the effect of manipulating the Facebook feed to control behavior, Facebook did some controversial research themselves, where they used sentiment analysis to make a feed more or less positive. People who were fed negative feeds, started using negative words in their own status update: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregorymcneal/2014/06/28/facebo...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregorymcneal/2014/06/28/facebook- manipulated-user-news-feeds-to-create-emotional-contagion/)

> The marketing study suggested companies should "[c]oncentrate media during > prime vulnerability moments, aligning with content involving tips and > tricks, instant beauty rescues, dressing for the success, getting organized > for the week and empowering stories... Concentrate media during her most > beautiful moments, aligning with content involving weekend guides, weekend > style, beauty tips for social activities and positive stories." The Facebook > study, combined with last year's marketing study suggests that marketers may > not need to wait until Mondays or Thursdays to have an emotional impact, > instead _social media companies may be able to manipulate timelines and news > feeds to create emotionally fueled marketing opportunities_.

<comment><USER8> Priming is one of the psychology topics worst afflicted by p-hacking. Almost every prominent priming study has gone down in flames during the replication crisis. Consistent, repeated _propaganda_ has real effects, priming doesn't.

<comment><USER2> Like said by the other poster, long-term priming is not proven nor disproven: Science needs better and more experiments. So we don't yet scientifically know enough about long-term priming to make a judgment on its effects. Short-term priming is well-established and has real measurable effects though. The prominent priming studies you refer to are the "exotic" studies -- these looked at less defined aspects of priming, and were found to be lacking.

> Amidst the recent furor over failures to replicate some empirical results on > behavior priming, it is important to emphasize that some basic behavior- > priming effects are real, robust, and easily replicable even if others are > much more problematic.

For instance, your reply contains too many words starting with "p" and "pr" for it to be a mere coincidence :). (syntactical priming is something that authors or editors have to guard against, as it can make for poor quality writing).

<comment><USER9> > Like said by the other poster, long-term priming is not proven nor > disproven:

If there is no evidence for it, there is little reason to be concerned about it at this point given how much research has gone into it.

<comment><USER2> Absence of evidence is no evidence of absence. You could put the Bayesian prior to be extremely low, but a zero chance would not make you a Bayesian anymore, it would make you a believer in that something is simply not possible (and no amount of scientific evidence would update your priors. It really is scientifically a mistake to claim: There exist no black swans. To proof that, one would have to observe all of existence. Now... should you worry about black swans, when all you see is white swans? Depends on you and the amount of risk managing. But that poster claimed all of priming is non-scientific, when we have clear replicated proof.

<comment><USER8> Suppose I run a fake investment company that pretends to double your money, but actually just steals it. Suppose you find out all my claims are lies, and demand your money back. How would you react if I said "The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. The prior probability of my investment strategy working is nonzero. Now give me more money."

Just pointing out that priors can't be zero isn't a principled stance, it's Pascal's mugging. You can use it to justify literally anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My immediate thought when I saw this was "Fancy scam mixed with PR bomb", a little digging surfaced these:

[https://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2019/02/27/spinner/](https://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2019/02/27/spinner/)

[https://www.prexamples.com/2018/07/frustrated-husbands- can-u...](https://www.prexamples.com/2018/07/frustrated-husbands-can-use- micro-targeted-native-ads-to-influence-their-wives-to-initiate-sex-surely-a- pr-stunt-please-a-pr-stunt/)

<comment><USER11> It's certainly a bit sketchy in terms of site administration etc., but it is a one-man operation so I'd say it's understandable.

The less understandable part is that it's charging $50 for 180 impressions such as [https://twitter.com/RichLeighPR/status/1037066048485371905](https://twitter.com/RichLeighPR/status/1037066048485371905) while Facebook sells those directly for a few dollars per 1000, i.e. 100x markup.

<comment><USER12> >The less understandable part is that it's charging $50 for 180 impressions such as [https://twitter.com/RichLeighPR/status/1037066048485371905](https://twitter.com/RichLeighPR/status/1037066048485371905) while Facebook sells those directly for a few dollars per 1000, i.e. 100x markup.

Facebook does not allow you to build a custom audience of 1 person. I believe it has to be a minimum size of 100 or thereabout. Which means when Spinner says your target will get 180 impressions, they have to throw in 99 random non-targets into the targeted audience in order to get the placement. Thus they really aren't marking it up as much as you think.

<comment><USER13> They would batch them though, wait for 100 clients who want the same and put them in the batch. So it does provide a marginal service, viewed from that angle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I laughed uncontrollably. I knew it was one of those classic 2000s style hoax sites like Coincidence Design ($40k private investigator to find out everything to make someone fall in love with you), or Penguin Warehouse (penguins as pets) or Pets or Food ... all funny, none real.

But wait .. this is ... real? Like they take real money from people? .... huh ... what was that quote about how everything that was once parody is reality?

This is some serious Poe's Law stuff here.

<comment><USER15> I thought it was satire. Satire died in 2016, but I still haven't learned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is fucked up. At first I thought, of course this exists but no one would really fall for it. Scrolling through the offerings, I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Psychological warfare on-demand, only $50!

<comment><USER17> Having someone see more articles on the benefits of quiting smoking is messed up?

<comment><USER18> Involuntary psychological manipulation is messed up regardless of the intent.

<comment><USER17> Ads we see can already be increasingly targeted to a very narrow group of people, which is spun as "making the adds more relevant to you". Is it different when it's a slightly larger group size than one?

<comment><USER19> I'm not clear here: are you using this as an argument in favor of spinner and their service or as an argument against targeted ads because they're basically just this spinner on a larger scale?

If the latter, I'm with you.

<comment><USER20> I am against targeted ads at all scales because we have a lot of fallacies that we cannot really control all the time even if we are aware of them.

But the reactions to this service is slight proof that an organisation evokes lesser negative reactions than an individual

<comment> din-9 I think the greater reactions are due to the targetting of individuals rather than the entity acting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Of course this is already happening on a massive scale. Perhaps having someone openly admit to it will help make people more aware.

<comment><USER22> I believe HN Does not allow people to question gaslighting on HN.

I never understood why. Mods claim it "doesn't add to the topic".

<comment><USER23> I don't recall ever saying either of those things.

<comment><USER24> Can you clarify, because while you've said gaslighting HN users is, "an egregious violation of the guidelines and a bannable offense on HN" [1], you're also saying the _questioning_ of gaslighting is allowed? Given the nature of gaslighting, those things seem one in the same, do they not?

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16608054](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16608054)

<comment><USER23> ratww already pointed this out, but the issue from our point of view was implying that the other commenter was not posting in good faith (how much is $baddie paying you). The concept of gaslighting didn't really enter into it.

I really appreciate your supplying a specific link. It's amazing how rare that is! and makes it so much easier to respond accurately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think this is called Sniper Targetting [1] or providing ads for a single audience.

Earlier I had read about someone who tried to spook his roommate by targetting him with heavily-personalized ads. Cannot seem to find it now.

[1]: [https://medium.com/@MichaelH_3009/sniper-targeting-on- facebo...](https://medium.com/@MichaelH_3009/sniper-targeting-on-facebook-how- to-target-one-specific-person-with-super-targeted-ads-515ba6e068f6)

<comment><USER26> Yeah, the roommate story is great! You can read it here:

The Ultimate Retaliation: Pranking My Roommate with Targeted Facebook Ads. [https://ghostinfluence.com/the-ultimate-retaliation- pranking...](https://ghostinfluence.com/the-ultimate-retaliation-pranking-my- roommate-with-targeted-facebook-ads/)

<comment><USER25> Yeah. That one. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Would a service like this work on people who don't use the popular social networks?

E.g. I get my news + dopamine from the local newspaper (physical paper edition) and HN, respectively. Ofc HN pretty much qualifies as a social network, but it has no targeting. My girlfriend isn't on any social network at all, unless WhatsApp qualifies as one and IMO it doesn't, unless you have a gazillion active group chats (which sounds like hell on earth).

I'm inclined to think that this makes both of us immune to attacks like the ones performed by this company, but I have an uneasy feeling that I'm missing something. Anyone with a better insight in targeting hacks than me able to chip in?

<comment><USER2> Anywhere you can see retargeted ads online you could be targeted.

WhatsApp group chats were used to spread carefully crafted opposition memes and fake news.

So, while you may be safe against 50$ campaigns, it could be a false sense of security. For 5000$-50000$ I am sure I can get a special message in front of your face: Take out local ads, plant a newspaper story, create a huge story about your controversial 5-million-dollar-revenue website on HackerNews (remember, no such thing as bad publicity, this website will see their customers spike today!)

> He banked on people hate-tweeting it. "I don't mind what they feel, as long > as they think something", Halib said – which is scarily like something I've > said in talks I've given about coming up with PR ideas that bang.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> They should add an "expose target to qanon and conspiracy theories"-option. There was an article not too long ago about what obsessing over this can do to personal relationships. It was not pretty.

<comment><USER29> Lollll

<comment><USER23> Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? You've done it a lot, and we're trying for a bit better than that here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Initially I was disgusted, but, then I realized I'd be interested in a "Make your parents skeptical of Fox News" option.

<comment><USER31> Considering how many stories CNN, ABC and MSNBC have gotten wrong (and retracted the next morning), I'm not sure they're any better. At least Fox's bias is obvious. They also tend to have a more diverse guest list in terms of political leaning.

BTW, I really don't watch much Fox news, I tend to read about things a few days after they have happened. When I stay active on twitter, it's all a cesspool of lies, and I am pretty sure the news media is part of it.

<comment><USER32> >They also tend to have a more diverse guest list in terms of political leaning.

I'm going to need to see some evidence for that one because it doesn't match what I've seen at all.

<comment><USER33> That evidence is stored on the other side of the looking glass, you can see them, but you're gonna have to jump.

<comment><USER32> I watched Fox News regularly until 2015 or so, so unless the changed dramatically since then the statement about them having more politically diverse guests is just wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This feels like a satire. But it's not. My god. We are truly living in the end of days.

Also the title is purposely inflammatory (if not also true).

<comment><USER35> The title is not good, but I'm not sure this isn't satirical, based on the "Get Your Kid A Dog!" campaign.

<comment><USER36> Also the "100% Natural" badge :)

<comment><USER37> Spinners usually say this to distinguish themselves from automated spinning tools.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I appreciate the "this is evil" analysis, but I have a different take on it:

Packaging this capability for everyday people is exactly what we need to get widespread understanding of what is being done to them, and begin to build social defenses.

Political parties, corporations, and all kinds of bad actors are doing this stuff all the time. People need to find ways to externally validate their realities. I don't see any way that can happen besides widespread adoption of consumer psyops tools.

It feels like Pandora's Box has been opened, and we need to get comfy with the monsters as a first step, if we are to subdue them.

<comment><USER39> Yes — this is the thing that will make it click for the ordinary people: that when we talk about online advertising, it's not the digital equivalent of printed magazine ads we're talking about, we're talking about _this_.

This, bought en masse, by most companies on Earth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'm tempted to use this as a demonstration to a friend who still doesn't believe me about targeted ads and the maliciousness of social media companies. I'd pay them to target her with an obviously irrelevant idea (have kids for example, considering she's against kids and does not want any) and hand her an encrypted flash drive with a message saying I did that beforehand. A few weeks later I'd ask her about it and give her the key to decrypt the drive and read my message.

<comment><USER41> You can also write your message locally and just email her the hash, then you can prove you had the original message.

`echo -n "MESSAGE" | shasum -a 256`

<comment><USER42> I think encryption is much more readily understood by nontechnical people than hashing, though.

<comment><USER43> While I agree with you 100% for the general public I think if someone is manually decrypting a file (assumedly with gpg) they understand enough to get hashing. Now if you want to get into the realm of really "understood" by the public you should just send a Word doc or zip file with a password on it.

<comment><USER42> Yes, the latter is the kind of thing, no need for gpg complexity. The original comment talked about an encrypted flash drives, and that's usually done in a fairly accessible way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I was curious as to how it all works, from the FAQ:

>The Spinner* sends you an innocent looking link. This link is sent to the target via text message. When the target presses the link, a cookie connected to the link attaches itself to the target's phone. From that point on, the target will be strategically bombarded with articles and media tailored to him or her.

So it's using a tracking cookie and the victim needs to click a link before anything happens. More from the FAQ:

>Thanks to an online advertising technique called "retargeting", the service makes sure that only the target sees the content chosen for her or him.

I assume Google Ad's remarketing (or SaaS, "stalking as a service") is what was meant: [https://support.google.com/google- ads/answer/2453998?hl=en&r...](https://support.google.com/google- ads/answer/2453998?hl=en&ref_topic=3122875)

So as far as I can tell, the whole thing is just using marketing features built into Google Ads.

</comment><comment><USER45> What? How are they controlling what articles the target sees via a cookie? What am I missing here?

<comment><USER46> It's based on remarketing technology. Just like Amazon can drop a cookie on your browser so they can later show you ads to convince you to come back and complete the blender purchase you have sitting in your cart, this site is offering to drop a cookie on the target and then show them ads for whatever message you would like to show.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Wish they had a campaign to convince my boss that working from home is a win- win situation.

<comment><USER48> Sounds like a great opportunity for a GoFundMe campaign.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> OP, what do you think "gaslighting" means here?

</comment><comment><USER50> Interesting the difference between the topline description "exposed to hundreds of items disguised as editorial content" and the one later in the page "10 articles". Could it be that a company which sells deception is playing a bit fast and loose with its claims?

Also, I think it would be very interesting to set up a honeypot for this and see what kinds of changes it drives. Anyone interested in splitting the cost for an experiment?

<comment><USER51> The hundreds of items could be links to the 10 articles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Frankly I'm surprised this isn't augmented with some sort of hyperlocal lat/long or zip-code based targeting to, for example, influence all the workers at a specific office building. It wouldn't take much for a company to bombard it's competitor's staff members with wacky conspiracy theories and/or other things to make them less effective.

</comment><comment><USER53> I think I have seen this link[0] posted a few times in related posts (I might have shared it as well).

[0] [http://ghostinfluence.com/the-ultimate-retaliation- pranking-...](http://ghostinfluence.com/the-ultimate-retaliation-pranking-my- roommate-with-targeted-facebook-ads/)

</comment><comment><USER54> You can do the same exact thing with facebook advertising. People have done it (job ads, apartments, etc.). This is just targeted at banner/Web vs. social media.

Doesn't make it any more or less icky, just saying that it's not the only method/it's happening already.

</comment><comment><USER55> Reminds me of something about a true crime case on TV.

[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/48-hours-drawn-to- murder/2/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/48-hours-drawn-to-murder/2/)

>But the plan went still further: at one point, police duped a newspaper reporter into writing a phony story saying an arrest was imminent. They even left a copy of Tim's mother's obituary on the windshield of a friend's truck.

>"That's torture," says Tim's former attorney, Erik Fischer. "They're trying to get this poor kid to relive his mother's death. They're trying to make him snap! It's a psychological experiment to try to make him snap!"

</comment><comment><USER17> I regularly use seven browsers: Three different ones at work, two different ones on my home desktop and three different ones on my phone.

My webmail intentionally runs in it's own browser profile which is only used for opening links in email. If the tracking cookie attached there it wouldn't apply to nearly any of my usual web browser usage.

If you use Chrome for your browser, you can create a new profile and "web app" to run your web mail in. In Firefox, pin your web mail to a container. (Hopefully links followed from there stay in the container?)

On your phone, open links from email in chat in Firefox Focus unless you have reason to do otherwise. In settings disable third party cookies. (Firefox Focus still allows normal cookies by default)

<comment><USER55> The real trick is to search for brands advertised in a magazine meant for a different demographic as you.

Beyond that, IP addresses are the primary identifier on the internet, and all other tracking is meant to differentiate between different users on a single IP address.

Temporary containers are a nice plug-in for Firefox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> My first thought was that it was subscription service for people who don't know how to re-light their furnace pilot light when it goes out. My second thought was - Is that a huge addressable market, but what do I know?

Then I clicked the link.

</comment><comment><USER57> Didn't Facebook for a while have the ability to target a single individual for ads? I seem to remember seeing some things on HN about people doing this a while back. Makes sense that someone would turn it into a service.

<comment><USER58> Yes, and I think they still technically do. At some point they changed it from a single target email to requiring 20, but you could get around this by uploading 19 others of a different gender, then use gender as a filter later on when creating the target list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> In the next couple years a couple things are going to happen:

1) This (or something like it) will go open source. 2) An AI will be made to generate campaigns automatically. This can either use articles selected with some sort of sentiment analysis, or by generating the content itself with the next gen GPT-2.

Neal Stephenson talked about this more then 10 years ago in the book Anathem, calling them "Artificial Inanity Engines."

</comment><comment><USER60> > * According to The Spinner's terms of use, if the initiator of the Spinner > service (i.e. the party that ordered and/or paid for the service) sends the > 'targeting link' to any user via any digital media, it's the initiator's > responsibility to refer the recipient to The Spinner's terms of use and > privacy policy.*

Uh huh.

</comment><comment><USER61> And it literally starts by you sending them an "innocuous looking" link. How does someone actually justify to themselves that doing something like this is even slightly okay? I'd feel deeply disturbed doing this to someone even if it was for a "good cause" like getting them to quit smoking.

</comment><comment><USER62> I don't know why but the Spinner video reminded me of the Friendface ad[1]. Maybe because both are hilarious in some ways and horrifying.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rNgCnY1lPg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rNgCnY1lPg)

</comment><comment><USER63> FT has an interesting article on it from last year: [https://www.ft.com/content/944d068c-8a99-11e8-affd- da9960227...](https://www.ft.com/content/944d068c-8a99-11e8-affd-da9960227309)

</comment><comment><USER64> "The Spinner* sends you an innocent looking link. This link is sent to the target via text message. When the target presses the link, a cookie connected to the link attaches itself to the target's phone."

Is this legal? I never click on links sent via SMS.

<comment><USER65> The person setting this up gets sent the link from The Spinner, and then has to figure out how to get it loaded on the target's device. Texting it to someone who trusts you (enough to click on a link anyway) is one way to get it done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> I wonder if it's possible to build a defense service to this.

Counter PsyOps as a service (if built, social networks should probably build it in for free).

Make something that can detect if your stories seem to be manipulated and show stories that counteract that.

<comment><USER67> Maybe something like an Ad-blocker would work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> > Message: Prevent Phishing Attacks!

> Target: Employeess

Hmmm

</comment><comment><USER69> The site took so long to load that I thought it was for showing the loading spinner tab icon, which also fit the name of the site. I had to go wait it out after reading the comments which seemed unrelated to the first experience.

</comment><comment><USER70> Is there anything stopping someone from abusing paid ad services for any of these platforms themselves to the same effect? This is assuming that they allow you to finely target the ads which I believe they do.

<comment><USER40> Not really. There was a story about someone pranking their roommate with targeted Facebook ads but FB then raised the minimum amount of people targeted. However as far as I know nothing prevents you from specifying a majority of fake emails/phone numbers in addition to your target's phone number as long as you're happy to pay for the extra wasted fake targets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> This is gross, shut this shit down now. There's no honest use for this. The only people who'll use it are psychopaths, we don't need to empower them, especially when it's as cheap as $50.

<comment> Const-me I don't disagree, but how is it different from corporations, who's using exactly same methods to deliver the message "purchase our crap"?

The only reason they are paying more than $50, they're buying more than 180 impressions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Keep in mind that large companies are already using the surveillance and advertising complex to influence behavior, and have been for years. This just puts it in the hands of anyone with $50 to spend.

</comment><comment><USER73> Hmm, I'm curious using this on oneself to encourage pro-social behavior or reinforce new habits.

Would it have a known placebo effect where even if you knew it was spun you'd still be influenced?

<comment><USER17> Sign up for the "eat less meat" campaign and let us know how it goes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> Well, I just opened the link and Facebook started showing ads related to "Marrying my partner", "Initiate sex", funny thing because I'm single

</comment><comment><USER75> This is manipulation and quite despicable imho.

Besides I'd rather make my own "nudging" (or spearphishing) campaign and save a few bucks if need ever showed.

<comment><USER76> Advertisement is manipulation.

<comment><USER75> I never said it wasn't - this is manipulative against someone you have a relationship (of some sort) with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> I think Darren Brown claims to use short term persuasive power to influence people to drastically change their mind about intimate things.

<comment><USER78> He claims that but it isn't true. He's a magician doing tricks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> Poor man's Cambridge Analytica!

</comment><comment><USER80> Product suggestion: bump the price to $99 and 20 x the traffic over a longer delivery window. You need more impressions than offered to meaningfully affect target beliefs. You can mix in cheaper ad space as well.

None of these have a direct call to action.... thus you need additional impressions to build recall or trigger inception.

</comment><comment><USER81> Would be interested to hear someone who actually had success with this.

</comment><comment><USER82> Firefox will block all the tracking cookie! So can not apply to me! ;)

</comment><comment><USER83> Apparently the guy who set it up is from Turkey but lives in Germany

</comment><comment><USER84> Illegal in Europe. You need to agreement for this kind of tracking.

</comment><comment><USER85> Fascinating. This is propaganda war at a micro scale.

</comment><comment><USER86> Sounds like an episode of Black Mirror.

</comment><comment><USER87> This is like a shitty SecretNudge.com

</comment><comment><USER88> This is very much akin to the "weapons-grade" tools used by the likes of Cambridge Analytica and AIQ to manipulate the minds of Trump and Brexit voters, using ill-gotten Facebook data to work out _exactly_ what pushes people's buttons.

Tools like this will now be used during every election/voting cycle, forever.

Extremely worrying, but inevitable.

</comment><comment><USER83> This has got to be a joke

<comment><USER14> Exactly what I though. It's very Poe's Law.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> lol Poor man's Cambridge analytica!

</comment><comment><USER89> I think I know who built this

</comment><comment><USER90> The HN title is incorrectly using "gaslight," and the website makes no mention of gaslighting.

> Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person seeks > to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted > group, making them question their own memory, perception, and sanity.

<comment><USER91> Without trying to be pedantic, I think bombarding people with false (or "spun") information that is in contrast to their views, principles, or beliefs through a long period of time would make them question their perception(s). I get that probably wouldn't change people's memory or sanity however.

<comment><USER92> Gaslighting usually involves lying about past interactions, not surrounding a person with persuasive material.

<comment><USER93> Correct - at the root of gaslighting is a bold-faced lie. From the source, it refers to a story where the husband turns down, and then back up, the gas- lights in their house continually, and denies that he is changing anything to his wife when she inquires why the light level keeps changing. Thus the term, "gas-lighting".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> Looks like the CIA finally got some competition.

</comment><comment><USER95> This is crazy but cool

</comment><comment><USER96> Right, so it's malware? Good old malware which once upon a time was frowned upon. Keep on top of that really special person who has a restraining order on you.

<comment><USER97> I don't think it's malware, it sounds like it's just using retargeting ads.</comment></comment>


When using Digital Ocean droplet as VPN server is it considered an ISP? - <AUTHOR> With the rollback on the newly proposed FCC rules, can you stay more private when setting up a VPN server on Digital Ocean than with your default ISP, in the United States? Please let me know if I need to further clarify my question. <comment><USER2> In theory yes, although the benefit is probably marginal now that everything is over HTTPS. ISPs will be able to sell your history but they won't have anything of value to sell.

</comment><comment><USER3> In what context? You connect to the droplet via your isp

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question. I mean would Digital Ocean be allowed to sell my browsing history like ISP's? Or are they not already bound by that restriction and they can sell that information anyway?</comment></comment>


Google is stalking me (iOS). Did I agree? - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.co.uk/maps/timeline <comment><AUTHOR> I just found out, that Google has my history of visited places and they are collecting it for quite long time. I'd never agreed to this consciously. Where did they get my agreement from?</comment>


Valve Index review: High-powered VR at a high-end price - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/28/19102584/valve-index-steamvr-headset-review-shipping-today <comment><USER2> I have a Vive and might go for the Index at some point down the line when I have a better PC, and there was one thing about this article that annoyed me (otherwise great though). I see lighthouses as possibly the best way to do spatial tracking, and have had much better success with them than visual tracking.

Basically, they completely avoid the visual tracking problem that can have issues in plain environments, dark rooms, and when the controllers are out of view. They're definitely expensive and I'll be keeping my v1 lighthouses from my Vive for a while, but I think they're worth it for the better VR experience.</comment>


Wakoopa Social is shutting down - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wakoopa.com/post/24878499948 <comment><USER2> Looks like I've logged close to 9 months of screen time since I started using it in 2009. RIP Wakoopa.

</comment><comment><USER3> How are their new products better than compete.com, Quantcast, Alexa and things like that?

<comment><USER4> Do compete, Quantcast and Alexa also track your application usage?

Wakoopa started as an application tracker, i.e. I'm using Firefox 32% of the time, Photoshop 10% and this quirky little Twitter client 45% of my time.

That's more difficult than it might seem, as detecting which one is in use is not always easy (or universal) and different versions of different applications report themselves differently all the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Odd that they are shutting this down. I thought there would be some value in the users etc?</comment>


Ask HN: Any Mac users on Chrome facing constant crashes and lag lately? - <AUTHOR>

This began for me probably 2 months or so ago, and I know many of my friends who use Chrome on Macbooks have the exact same issue.
I've been using Firefox for a few weeks now but dying to switch back.
Chrome causes a spinning wheel of death which will not disappear - I am forced to hard reboot my computer. <comment><USER2> Nope not really, the one thing that has changed is that I can no longer use the swipe left to go back command. Swiping forward still works.</comment>


Hyperloop: MIT students win contest to design Elon Musk's 700mph travel pods - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/jan/31/mit-students-win-competition-to-design-elon-musks-hyperloop-travel-system <comment><USER2> If that is the picture of the winner, how does it comply with ADA?</comment>


Ask YC: What did YC see in Disqus? why are they special? - <AUTHOR> I used Disqus and liked it, and would like to congratulate them on their recent launch.  But this is a very competitive market.  Disqus is doing a good job, but I am not too clear how (in a major way) they differentiate from others.  But they are getting lots of support from important bloggers.  I know they were funded by Y Combinator and spent the summer in Boston.
I believe launching a product is as important (if not more important) than the idea, and getting it developed.  These guys have had a great launch.  I want to learn from them.
 Here are my questions:
Q1: Knowing there is many competition out there (but not exactly any clear leaders!) what made them interesting to Y Combinator, why were they chosen?
 Q2: Why so much hype and support (and so many positive reviews all over the place)? is it because of Y Combinator connections and support or there is more to it?
Q3: How big is this market and the potential of this business (if things workout for them) that got YC to invest?

Note: I am not arguing whether they deserve it or not, and I am not questioning their product (but you could!) I just don't think they have revolutionized, there is many competition and they get the most attention, and I believe this kind of support could make or break a product.
Few similar products: SezWho, Intense Debate, Tangler, JS-Kit, CoComment ... <comment><USER2> Here's what's special about Disqus's business model/idea:

1\. They have a grand long term plan (provide blog readers a centralized place to manage discussions on the web). They're sort of a social network in that way and their value will increase exponentially as their user base does.

2\. They have an easy route to gaining the critical mass, by providing bloggers a simple plug-in that gives threaded, voteable comments, as well as some extra kick ass functionality. So they have a ton of initial value even with no user base.

3\. They have a path to revenue. Large blogs would gladly pay for the service. And they could form their own ad network, as they know who reads what blogs (interests). There's also a lot of moving going on in the web publishing space.

I feel like some of the competitors you've mentioned have parts of the puzzle but Disqus has the whole thing. Given all that, it's pretty easy to see why Y C would fund these guys.

</comment><comment><USER3> This was surely a factor: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4783>

<comment><USER4> I wonder why people do that sort of thing except as an exercise:

[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=+this+works+perfect...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=+this+works+perfectly+well+site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fnews.ycombinator.com&btnG=Search)

<comment><USER3> Well, not necessarily disagreeing with you, but as it happens, I used BigHeadLab's search to find the thread that I linked. I searched

"<http://nycs.bigheadlabs.com/>"

(no quotes) on the site <http://nycs.bigheadlabs.com/> and the first result was the one I wanted (although the link format that YC uses has since changed, so I had to hack the URL).

I tried this Google search, and the result did not appear:

[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22http%3A%2F%2Fnyc...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22http%3A%2F%2Fnycs.bigheadlabs.com%2F%22+site%3Anews.ycombinator.com&btnG=Search)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Because the founders are really smart, capable, and driven. Same reason YC picks almost every company. The actual business idea is less important than the founders, as pg has said frequently.

</comment><comment><USER6> Jason & Daniel make a great team?

</comment><comment><USER7> The big problem with this product for bloggers is that bloggers won't get any search traffic from their comments.

Search engines either don't look inside of iframes, or point to the iframe's URL if they do.

<comment><USER8> While there may be some indexing issues, it is due to another matter altogether. The comments are not in iframes.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure if search engine indexing for comments is too big of a deal anyway. I still can't think of any way for them to generate the comments in a search engine friendly way though. Search engine bots don't render Javascript right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> They're special cuz they're Aggies! Go Davis!!!

</comment><comment><USER7> Excellent question. Maybe they have future features planned that will distinguish them?

<comment><AUTHOR> even if this is true, this will only answer question 1, but what about question two? why are they getting so much attention from everyone?

<comment><USER10> Maybe because they're good? Even the Uncov guy likes it! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> what do you mean by they? the team or the product? ... if the product, then how did YC knew it was going to be good... and it takes more than being good to convince people to take a look at your product .... I think _they are good_ but I don't see how they are so different from other ones... specially since they are so late in the game ... when you are late and you have a product that has social aspects to it, you need to do a lot more than being good in order to compete ... you have a major disadvantage and thats network effects (maybe not _as_ crucial here since no one has really gained it yet, but once someone does its very hard to compete) ... also its not that easy to convince a blogger to switch from their current commenting system to a new one, specially that they have created an archive for themselves, and many of the current systems do not let you move your content around (i.e. at the end of the day you don't really own your comments)

<comment><USER11> Being different in the manner you describe is overrated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> They have a Hypnotoad.

</comment><comment><USER13> because they get shit done

<comment><AUTHOR> I meant between all those that get shit done what happened here ... I thought that was clear???

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Jason and Daniel.

</comment><comment><USER15> the domain name

</comment><comment><USER16> 'why are they getting so much attention from everyone?'

Its called a PR firm, and they take care of bombing every worthy media outlet with a tailored-made hyper-inflated story on how they will change the world (a.k.a 'Press release').

They are generally expensive, but are often worth every penny since they have contacts in all the major media departments, which in turn create this type buzz. Wait till their PR budget runs out, then we will see if the software stands on its own.

<comment><USER17> _Its called a PR firm_

Neither Disqus nor YC has a PR firm.

I think the main reason Disqus gets attention from bloggers is that it's designed _for_ bloggers. They know better than anyone what a pain it is to manage comment threads.

<comment><AUTHOR> could you give some points about Q1 and Q3 as well?

<comment><USER17> Q1: They were energetic and smart.

Q3: We liked the idea because it was clearly something the world needed. Comments are badly broken on most blogs, including even big ones like Techcrunch. I have no idea how big the market is in dollars. It's not worth thinking too much about anyway. Startups evolve. It's enough to start with something you know people need.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the response, and I am happy to see these as _your_ answers to my questions</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mark Suster: The Future of Television & The Digital Living Room - <AUTHOR> http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/10/19/the-future-of-television-the-digital-living-room/ <comment><USER2> Interesting post.

I have to disagree on one point: content bundling. We, as consumers, want content to be unbundled (so called "a la carte" cable). Nobody else wants this. Not the content creators nor the content distributors.

Content creators fear it because of the revenue they make from bundling. A cable channel might make a pittance on each cable subscription but they're making it on every cable subscription.

Content distributors suspect that unbundling will lead to consumers buying less content, only the content they want to watch. That means less revenue for them.

Basically put it out of your mind because it's not going to happen anytime soon.

I agree with Mark's assertion that the industry is suspicious of Google's motives and this will hamper the adoption of Google TV. Google wants to commoditize this and many other markets. In many respects this is good for consumers but effectively destroying the viability of a market by giving it away is the kind of thing that has unintended consequences.

I suspect Apple are far closer to the mark here: people don't want a computer. They just want to watch TV. At some point I can see more and more TV being on- demand.

But there is a schism over pricing that will need to be resolved. Content creators think Apple's rental prices are too low. Empirically, Apple's prices are too high for consumers (eg Amazon pointed out you could buy a TV series for less than you could rent it for from Apple in some cases).

I would love to see a revenue breakdown of a TV show as in how much it makes in advertising (excluding product placement) and then compare that to the potential revenue for renting that same show ad-free. I suspect the rental model is far higher but I suspect the television industry is still entrenched in this idea of selling advertising.</comment>